Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and company, their world, the organizations in that world, or anything else you read in the manga. I do own the characters I bothered to give personalities to and the organizations I put them in and I shall flame you to hell if you use them.

Start Here

The next morning didn't dawn well in the middle of Everglade. But it had dawned enough to become annoying. Wrinkling his eyes up, Naruto tried to turn around, but bashed his nose against the generally uncomfortably material of the couch. Giving up on the idea of more sleep, Naruto resigned to consciousness and got up. When he looked around, Naturu wasn't in the house, but the door was open, letting more bleak sunlight into the house. Walking out, he saw Naturu cooking some sort of breakfast with the rest of the inhabitants of the loose square that the house was in. In reality, he was burning breakfast and stuttering through a conversation with a plain looking girl who's only distinguishing feature were brilliant lines of freckles across her nose. Walking up to the fire, Naruto plunked himself down on Naturu's other side.

"Morning." Naruto yawned, still not quite awake,

"Oh you're up." Naturu said; handing him a half singed roll stuffed with some sort of meat.

"Hey Naturu, who's your friend?" freckle girl asked, peering over his shoulder.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto said, beaming with newfound energy.

"Pleasure to meet you Uzumaki-san. I'm Nieco Gustala."

"Nice to meet you too Nieco-san, but please Naruto-kun's fine." Naruto replied, adding a bit more sincerity to his smile.

"Actually, Gustala's my family name, but you must use my given name if I'm to use yours." Nieco replied with a slight giggle.

Breakfast went well and ended on a happy note. Then Naturu and Naruto left for the Office, unbeknownst to them, after they boys announced their destenation and left, the once happy mood dampened drastically.

(space/line)(space/line)(space/line)(space/line)(space/line)

"Hey!" Naruto yelled when he saw the silent and moody boys coming their way. "Where'd you stay?" he asked, jumping to Neji's side.

"My place." Sasuke said from behind the blonde.

"I didn't ask you." Naruto snapped before turning back to Neji. Naruto talked in an amiable nature. Halfway to their destination, Da Ten joined them, her hair done in numerous braids and pinned with pins with bells attached.

"You're late." She said flatly.

"Late for what?" Naturu asked, plainly confused.

"Ah no!" Sasuke said with a pained look, "the Choosing."

"Oh shit!" Naturu said, "We've got to get going!"

"What are we late for?" Naruto yelled.

"The next leader's going to be chosen today." Sasuke said back, "Mitsu's one of the candidates for the position and she'll fry us alive if we're late."

They made it to the Office in half the time it should have. The Office was the only building that didn't belong in the natural landscape. The metallic doors in the whitewash walls led into a blue mosaic lobby with gentle, concaved coloums and rounded edges on the walls. However, the architecture was lost on the group of teens as they raced through the doors with so much force the tiles chipped where the door ricocheted off the wall, not that they noticed that detail either.

"The observation room for the Choosing is down the back stairwell second door on your left!" the receptionist yelled as they ran past. Contrasting the beautiful lobby, the stairwells had water damage and the most noticeable feature were the half tarnished brass railings that they slid down. They made it to the bottom of the staircase, turned down the hall, then dashed through the second door on the left. Already it was full of family and friends of those battling for the position of leader of the Shadow. The group of five squeezed themselves into the small right corner of the window. The battlers (all 12 of them) were gathered in a large ring, but with a low ceiling compared to others of its size.

"They're all so young." Neji marveled. Indeed, the youngest was under thirteen, but the oldest was barely eighteen, if that.

"But their all the best, the best fighters, the best thinkers, or a combination." Da Ten said almost wistfully, gently jingling.

"And Mitsu's one of them." One of the twins said proudly, appearing from seemingly nowhere and suspending himself from the ceiling.

"It's mostly because of her blood limit you know." The other one said, crawling like a giant spider to the middle of the window. "There are lots of other blood limits in the city."

"But you do have to admit, hers is one of the most unique traits you can inherit." Da Ten.

"What can she do?" Naruto asked,

"You'll find out." Da Ten said as the lights dimmed in the observation box.

"The rules are as follows," a voice said over a powerful speaker in the middle of the ceiling, "the snake coiled around your necks will bite you if you would have been dealt a fatal blow, it will knock you out. Do not deliver the final blow, if you do, you WILL be charged with murder. If you are bitten, stay down; you won't be stepped on. I repeat DO NOT KILL ANYONE. Good luck, good health, begin in three, two, one." As the countdown finished, a flurry of activity began below. Within the first half minute, a quarter of the participants had been bitten. After the first fifteen minutes of destructive blurs, only two distinct battles, and six fighters, remained. Each person was focused on their own battles, so no one noticed the steady drips that landed silently admit the violence below. Suddenly, a dark glow started appearing in almost satanic designs. Then, a particularly zealous fighter raised his arms in victory as his opponent fell to the floor, the paralyzing quality of the snake venom taking effect. He smeared blood over his face and stuck out a forked tongue. He dropped his hand and looked around for his next victim. Suddenly, he was the next victim as the blood that had stained the floor around him morphed into grappling hands and glued him to the floor as it snaked up his body. The snake bit him shortly before he drowned in the blood. The screaming caught the attention of the other assailants, another one of whom had been eliminated. They looked around for the mystery attacker, until they too felt the tugging of blood at their feet. Then they were too busy saving themselves to worry about the person controlling the liquid.

"That's Magicblood moves, aren't they?" a stout woman asked her companion, a tall man.

"Haven't seen on of those in at least three years." He said like they were comparing antique vases instead of ruthless fighters. The mystery attacker came down from the sky, throwing needles that seemed to come out of her fingertips.

"That's the last of Magicbloods, Solidblood, and Rag Dolls." A grungy looking man said, cutting into the stout woman's conversation. Back in the ring simple cuts on two fighters were quickly attacked by the blood, which forced itself into the cuts, no matter how shallow. Quickly the influx of extra blood forced itself out of the holes in the body (the eyes, nose, and mouth) and they were bitten.

"My mother always said inbreeding breeds idiocy." The woman said offhand, "I hope she looses."

Mitsu, the blood user, hit the floor the same time as her now "dead" opponents, retracting her blood from their veins. Suddenly, a flash of movement caught everybody's eye as the last opponent jumped out of the shadows, a halberd-type weapon raised, aiming for her back. In one smooth motion, she cut her wrist and raised it behind her. The gush of blood that spurted out solidified, and the would-be-winner was impaled. The audience fell into silence, each holding his or her breath. Then the attacker came out of shock and indicated he was alive. But he was closer to death than the living, so Mitsu won. ("Damn," the woman said.)

"Congratulations, Bounty hunter Sangsei Mitsu, you have obeyed the rules, and beaten your enemies, you are the next leader of the Shadow." The voice said over the speaker. Mitsu bowed to the observation room, then to a window on the other side; then promptly fainted.

"Oh shit," the twin on the wall said, "We'd better get down there before she wakes up, Kaito…" but the brother on the ceiling had already left.

"We still should go down and congrats the new Shadow." Naturu said, already pushing through the crowd.

Stop Here

"Where am I?"

so what did you think? i personally like this fight better, but it still sucks. ah well. well, to miako, the tanuki thing is kinda a side note that i can go deep into but won't. while i thank you for the complement on my eye sight, i based the small/medium mammal demon thing on the size of the animal. you must agree that compared with the rest of the animal world, a fox is rather petit. there's a diffrent catagory for reptiles, small/medium mammals, large mammals, birds, fish, water mammals, amphibions, and shell fish currently (although i've only named...three catagories) the point of that aspect is less what each charcter is, but rather, how Kaito knew. so i hope that cleared it up a bit. any other queries, questions, concerns, comments, suggestions, or flames can be summited in the purple box that pops up after you press the pretty purple button. till next time!